


May the bridges I have burned light my way back home

by reading_is_in



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Bandom - Freeform, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 16:23:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4398998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reading_is_in/pseuds/reading_is_in
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Requested by Turps at the bandom meme. Lyric Prompt:</p><p> </p><p>  <i>It was the fourth of July</i><br/>You and I were, you and I were fire, fire, fireworks<br/>That went off too soon<br/>And I miss you in the June gloom, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	May the bridges I have burned light my way back home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turps/gifts).



2005.

 

“From now on I’m only dating sane people,” Pete announces.

“Mm-hm,” says Patrick without looking up from the latest composition on his laptop.

“Trick? I said I’m only dating sane people, okay? From now on I’m not sleeping with anyone crazy. It’s too complicated.”

“That’s great, Pete.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Pete no offense,” Patrick sighs and closes a browser window, “But when was the last time you expressed romantic or sexual interest in anyone who might, by any verifiable standard, be called  
‘sane’?”

“Ugh. That is such an oppressive construct,” Pete flings himself dramatically backwards on the couch next to Patrick. “You’re perpetuating oppressive constructs, Patrick.”

  
“ - ! – You _started_ it!” Patrick exclaims, and Pete doesn’t really have an answer for that, so he settles for tickling Patrick into submission.

*

They’ve met My Chem a few times before, backstage at award ceremonies or the general coming and goings of festivals, but touring with a band is something different. They all meet in a parking lot initially and then it’s in and out of each other’s buses all the time, they’re cool guys, and if Pete could’ve lived without Frank telling him:

“I gotta say man, when we first met, I thought you were like, really up yourself, but now that I’ve gotten to know you you’re not like that at all,”

It’s no more gratuitously honest than Pete himself has been at times.

Trick hits it off with Ray Toro and they have long involved discussions on the merits and demerits of genre fusion. Joe is apparently firm friends with everyone already (he’s weird like that) and Andy finally has someone to talk to vegan ethics with (Frank’s on the edge. He apparently told Andy that if good vegan pizza existed, he’d do it, so Andy has a challenge now). Pete’s curious about Gerard Way. Onstage he’s a force of nature, charismatic and brilliant and brave, but tends to disappear after shows and mumbles a lot and stares at his shoes if you talk to him.

“Pete, _no_ ,” says Patrick sharply, like Pete’s a dog considering the temptation of a kitchen counter.

“I wasn’t gonna-”

“Just – no. Please Pete. That will not end well.”

“Shut up, you’re not my mom.”

“Do you want me to _call_ your mom and have her tell you?”

“No-ooo…”

“Then stay away from the intriguing-sexy-emo-alcoholic-frontman, okay? I know how your mind works.”

Just to spite Patrick, Pete invites himself to go hang out on the My Chem bus after the show. It’s a hot, sticky July night and Joe’s pot smoke is stinking up the air on theirs, half the tour seems to grabbing the chance for an afternoon nap and the rest are spread around outside, drinking beer and playing with supersoakers. Pete’s seriously gonna have to get one of those. My Chem’s bus is a little haven of quiet darkness, curtains drawn and A/C running, which makes sense, given that Ray’s the only member of that band who looks like he sees natural sunlight once in a while.

“Gee’s not here,” says the other one, the tall skinny bassist who never talks and it takes Pete’s brain a floundering second to pull up: ‘Mikey’, “He’s off with that Used guy” wrinkling his nose extremely cutely, so Pete says,

“Maybe I came to see _you_ , Mikey Way. Bassist solidarity,” because flirt is his default mode when confronted with anything that endearing. Mikey Way isn’t fooled – he rolls his eyes and gives Pete a ‘yeah right’ smile, but moves his long legs so Pete can sit down on the couch.

“What are you watching?” Pete asks. “Gremlins 2? Dude no way, this is like literally my favorite movie that isn’t Tim Burton!”

“Original was better,” mumbles Mikey.

“That is almost always true, but this is like the one incident in the history of movies it isn’t true.”

And it turns out Mikey Way does talk after all, given the opportunity.

*

By the time Pete gets back to the FOB bus, it’s creeping up to 4am and he’s in love again. He does tend to fall in love rather quickly and just as abruptly fall out of it, but this time it’s the real thing. His brain means it as well as his heart and well, downstairs brain. He and Mikey Way had everything to talk about. Not just movies, but like, life, and comedy and tragedy and the human soul and music and being in a band on the road and God, how could he have thought Gerard was the intriguing one? Plus, Mikey’s even normal. Well, not _normal_ normal – he is in My Chem – but not crazy like Pete’s crazy. It doesn’t bleed off him. _And_ he’s smart and reads books and has this quiet dry sense of humor that’s the opposite of Pete’s random outbursts, and in short Pete is love with him, and he wants him but also wants to be him. When he gets to his bunk, he wants to text Mikey goodnight, but he’s aware he can come on too strong sometimes and weird people out and they really only just met a few hours ago, so he forces himself to wait until proper morning.

 _ _I had fun last night xx_ , _he texts, deletes the xx, then re-adds it because what the hell, he texts Patrick and Joe and Andy xx, and his mom, and everyone knows he has boundary issues right? For all Pete knows Mikey isn’t even into guys, but by the middle of the night they’d been sitting pretty damn close and there was something about Mikey’s open, relaxed posture that suggested he’d at least be open to the suggestion.

 _Me too,_ his sidekick pings: _:). :)_  isn’t xx but nor is it WTF, so Pete texts back

 _U free after soundcheck xx_ and Mikey texts

_yy :)_

And right after their first, frantic make-out session behind Gym Class’s bus, Mikey pulls back and looks down at Pete and says

“Well, that escalated quickly.”

Pete has found his non-Platonic soulmate, and, wonder of wonders, Mikey seems as enraptured with Pete in his quiet, profound way as Pete is with him in his clingy garrulous insanity.

  
So of course, whatever it is in Pete’s brain that doesn’t want him to have good things decides to test the situation, and he tells Mikey

“I tried to kill myself back in February.” It’s 5pm, crew are setting up, and they’re sitting on a little grassy hill watching the stage assembly.

“I heard,” says Mikey.

“From who?” Pete frowns.

“Just – around, you know. Maybe I read it someplace.”

“Anyway I’m glad I didn’t die now,” says Pete. “Because then I wouldn’t have met you.”

Mikey smiles, crooked and adorable, and squeezes Pete’s hand with his long thin fingers. “I’m glad too,” he says. He’s perfect.

 _July days and August nights,_ he scrawls in one of his journals: _Stars are hot and clear as you and me. I don’t know what day it is and I don’t care, so long as this thing is not bounded in by the haze of summer….I don’t want Warped to end. I don’t want this to end. This feels infinite ._

*

“Hey,” mutters Gerard Way through his black fringe. He’s turned up alone, knocked on the door of FOB’s tour bus like they haven’t all been treating Warped like a giant commune for weeks now. He’s wearing a black oversized hoodie that will be torture once the day heats up. His hands are stuffed in his jeans pockets, and he looks kind of hungover.

“Sup?” says Pete. “Come on in man.”

“Can we talk alone?” Way asks, and seeing as he made the effort to be up and coherent before noon in full sunlight, Pete acquiesces and they find a bit of privacy by the remains of someone’s campfire, a little way away from the caravan of buses and vans.

“So you and my brother,” Gerard tells the ground.

“Yeah,” says Pete. “Oh hey, wait – is this a if-you-hurt-him-I’ll-cut-you speech? Cos I totally inferred that from the first day, man. And in any case I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Ever.”

Gerard gives him _a_ measured look. “The two of you seem to be moving extremely fast with this thing.”

“We haven’t done it yet.” – Ugh, Jesus, why do these things come out of his mouth?

Gerard goes pink and says, “Um, um, okay, I don’t need to know that, and when – if you do, please for the love of God don’t tell me about it. But he really likes you Pete. Like, I haven’t seen Mikey this into someone since - I don’t know when. “ Then his shyness seems to vanish and he looks Pete dead in the eye and says, “The thing is, Pete, you seem cool and all, but your reputation kinda precedes you.”

There’s no answer for that. There are several things Way could mean, after all, and Pete is more or less guilty of all them.

“Now I’m not judging,” Gerard holds his hands up. “God knows I’m the last person to judge. But that kid is one of the few things I’ve done right by in this life, and I don’t know if you realize how special he is.” He finishes on a sharp note, almost defensive, and Pete says

“Oh I know, I know, absolutely,”

And Gerard says, like a no-bullshit therapist:

“Do you really consider yourself stable enough to be pursuing this – this thing right now?”

Pete thinks about how he can answer that and then says: “This is pretty much the stable-est I’ve been since I was a kid,” because sometimes comparative statements are an excellent work-around.

“Okay then,” like a switch being flipped, Gerard grins at him. “Okay.” And he pats Pete on the shoulder a little awkwardly. “Well, good luck with it then.”

“I – thank you.”

“Oh and Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“If you hurt him I’ll cut you.”

“Roger that,” says Pete, gives a mock salute.

 

*

They start sleeping together pretty soon after that. Mostly on hotel nights –it’s pretty much impossible to get any kind of privacy on tour – but they steal quickies on buses sometimes, mostly the FOB bus, because if Pete’s guys come in they’ll just go,

“Jesus Pete,” and go out again, and Pete has no idea what the MCR guys will do. To Pete’s surprise, it does actually include sleeping – he can go to sleep cuddled up with Mikey, not for very long, but fuck it, when has he ever slept more than 3 hours at a stretch? When he wakes up, on the edge of falling out of a bunk or being too hot and sweat-sticky or because his brain is buzzing or shooting adrenalin he tries to stay quiet, tries to just watch Mikey, all long lines and angular features relaxed in sleep. Mikey never minds when he wakes him up though. He just smiles and says

“Hey,” soft and sleep ruffled, fumbles automatically for his glasses and somehow ends up with a hand on Pete’s face more often than not, cupping his chin or palming his cheek or running his fingers through his hair. Pete says

“Hey,” and it comes out breathless, he’s always on edge when he wakes up but this helps, this – Mikey grounds him.

 

*

There are fireworks. Literal and metaphorical fireworks – it’s July after all, and the participants of Warped tour will take any excuse for an extended celebration. They watch them from blankets and make out for a while, and Pete lends Mikey his denim jacket because he’s so skinny he’s always cold, and the sight of him huddled up in it smiling his sweet dorky smile does things to Pete’s heart. They sneak off in cities they’re passing through, just to wander around, holding hands like teenagers and giggling behind their shades. They talk about movies and music and their childhoods and the universe. They don’t run out of things to say.

Pete writes

 _I am in love with you_ and then tears the note up, writes it in his journal instead, and _I want to run away with you and get married across the border in Canada_ , and _when I’m with you I can almost stand myself.  
_

*

Mikey is certainly special, but he is not magic, and touring is still pretty fucking intense and alas Pete is still nuts. Two days straight without sleep and by Tuesday the weird veil has settled over his eyes, the screen that disconnects him from the world and traps and him in his body like a ghost. He feels like that guy in the movie who dies and doesn’t know he’s dead, screaming ‘EVERYONE I’M HERE’ but everybody just moves around with their busy lives and can’t hear him, the veil stops them. Anxiety is buzzing at the edges of his skull, the definite precursor to some kind of incident and adding the anticipation of that to the general freak-outery, and ha ha, you can’t do anything about it fucker, cos you’re crazy. Joe drops a water bottle on the bus and Pete nearly jumps out of his skin. Patrick says,

“Okay?”

And Pete says, “Yes!” because Jesus, he hates putting this stuff on the guys, hates that they have to pick up his slack when his pathetic brain decides to turn on him.

“Do you wanna skip the press today?” Joe asks. “We can say you’re sick or whatever.”

“No!” Pete wants to skip it, but if he skips press to go hide out in his bunk, he might be too scared to get out for soundcheck, and if he skips that he might not be able to get onstage, and that is unacceptable. He has solemnly promised himself he will not fuck this band up again. A lot of people would have dumped him after Best Buy, and with good reason. Pete’s a problem. They could find a better bassist tomorrow who comes without all the drama.

“If you’re sure,” Patrick looks doubtful, gives his shoulder a squeeze, and goes to turn the A/C up. It’s a boiling day. Sunlight feels aggressive, revealing, shades not enough protection today. Pete makes it through the day’s handful of interviews, God knows what he says, and spends the rest of the day hiding out from anyone in My Chem. He’s not ready for Mikey to know about this. Not in a firsthand way. When he knows he’ll probably run a mile. ‘Better hope he does’, says the bullying voice in Pete’s brain: ‘That kid is too good for you to ruin’.

He makes it through the set, rigid and automated and barely moving from his mike stand – Joe and Patrick try to make up for it, work the crowd more than usual, but Pete can hear kids trashing him, laughing at him like the freak he is, his heart starts racing, and the millisecond the set’s over he’s darting offstage and bending over to vomit in the dirt. Vomiting makes him cry, and crying makes – yeah, there’s the panic attack. He starts to hyperventilate, only dimly away of hands on his back and exclamations of concern, and the next thing he’s really away of is lying on a trolley in the cool of a tent, Patrick’s hand on the inside of his elbow and Andy rattling off a list of Pete’s medications to a guy with MEDIC on the back of his jacket. There’s a sharp spike of pain in his left hand – and he realises what brought him back, a middle-aged woman is sliding an IV under the skin.

“This is just some fluids, hon, you’re doing fine,” she says brightly, and she’s wearing the same jacket as the other guy.

“Hey,” Patrick whispers and pats his arm, and he looks sad and stressed out, and shit, Pete never wanted to put that look on his face again.

“Mr. Wentz, it appears you had a panic attack,” says the medic guy – well no shit, Sherlock, top of the class there – “Has this happened before?”

“Yes,” says Pete’s entire band simultaneously, along with Dan who has also appeared from somewhere.

“Right, so you know the attack itself isn’t physically dangerous, but you’re rather dehydrated, and your blood pressure and temperature are elevated. We’d like to keep you here for a while for observation.”

“I feel fine,” says Pete, and starts getting up. He feels like shit, physically, and the inside of his mouth tastes like something died in there, but the panic is gone and the veil of disconnection has lifted. Maybe he puked them out. Exorcist style.

“Even so,” says the medical guy firmly, as Patrick and Andy lean over to push him back down, and that did make him feel kind of dizzy, but this sucks now, he wants to get out of here. A few minutes pass while the smiley woman comes over to do his blood pressure, and the medic guy taps away on his laptop, and Pete sighs and feels awkward and says, “Guys you don’t have to stay, I’m sure I’ve fucked your day up enough.”

“Don’t be silly,” Patrick frowns at him.

“Actually I’m really sorry,” says Dan, and looks it, “But we have MTV live scheduled in fifteen minutes. We can cancel, but it is MTV, I’ll have to say-”

“Oh God no, go do it,” Pete makes a half-hearted shooing gesture and lets his head flop back on the trolley-thing. “You don’t have to all babysit me. That’s what they’re for.” He gestures vaguely at the medical people. Patrick puts up a bit more of a fuss, but they go in the end, and Pete tries again to persuade the doctor guy that he’s honestly fine and can go now, but they’re all being very cautious. Pete guesses if they let him go and he dropped dead of a heart attack, it would be one hell of a lawsuit. Medic woman hands him a cup of mouthwash and a bottle of water so he can finally get the puke taste of his mouth, so he calls her an angel from heaven and she rolls her eyes. At some point a teenage roadie gets hauled in by his friend and girlfriend, all bruised and covered in dirt and bleeding through the knees of his jeans, but by the way he keeps going

“DUDE! That was epic! DUDE!” and high-fiving his friend while the girl tuts and rolls her eyes, Pete guesses he’s pretty much fine.

Some time passes.

“Knock knock,” says a familiar voice, and Pete opens his eyes without realizing he’s dozed off, and Mikey Way is standing awkwardly in the tent flaps. He has to duck a bit to get inside and has an awkward smile on his face. The medical guy is gone but the woman is busy on the computer. She looks up briefly, sees Pete recognise Mikey, and goes back to work.

“Hey,” Pete says brightly, pushing himself up and trying to ignore the fact he must look like utter shit.

“What happened?” asks Mikey softly, coming over to trace one finger over the back of Pete’s un-IV’d hand. If Pete was smart and/or sane, this would be the point at which he’d tell the truth and they’d have a heart to heart over about honesty and vulnerability and all that. Mikey already knows about Best Buy. But Pete is supposed to be all fixed up now, and Gerard’s already wary, and he can’t lose this now. He just can’t. So instead he says

“Guess I ate something bad.”

“Stay away from the burger vans,” Mikey frowns and leans over to give him a quick peck on the forehead. “You don’t know where that stuff comes from.”

“I have learned my lesson,” says Pete solemnly and holds up his fingers in a scout’s promise.

“Like you were ever a boy scout,” Mikey says fondly, and Pete grins and pulls him in for a proper kiss.

*

It’s not getting better.

Things with Mikey are wonderful. There are more city escapes and movie nights and long conversations and Pete might not want to have sex with anyone ever again. But because his brain won’t let him have nice things, the excitement and happiness of a new relationship has to be counterbalanced by a series of terrifying lows, wherein the bottom drops out of his mind and he ends up sobbing in hotel bathrooms or fantasising about slitting his wrists and Dan quietly has all sharp objects removed from their tourbus. Patrick, God love him, mistakes correlation for causation and asks Pete if he’s sure “this thing with Mikey Way” is good for him, and Pete thinks ‘If it wasn’t for Mikey Way I would shoot myself in the face right now’, but he’s still aware at some level of how horribly unfair it would be to say that to his living saint of a best friend, so he just goes

“No it’s good. It’s the best thing in my life at the moment.”

“Then have you thought about maybe telling him? He’s not stupid. He’s got to know something’s going on.”

Which well, yeah, that’s true, but the thing is that Pete’s only crazy for 30% of the time, and when it passes it passes like a light being flicked on, and he’s back to being this fun funny guy whom Mikey apparently likes a whole lot. If he can keep the monster away from Mikey, there’s no reason for him to know. When the monster’s behind the steering wheel, he hides out. Locks himself on the bus, stops returning Mikey’s texts or calls and stoops to the profound low of physically hiding from people associated with My Chem in the general comings and goings of the tour. It’s kind of shitty of him, but consider the alternative. Afterwards he’s all,

“Dude, I’m so sorry, yesterday was just nuts, you know. We had so much press and then I forgot to charge my phone, I’m sorry, let’s hang out later.”

It ends pretty much where it began, except they’re on couch in FOB’s bus this time, and Pete should have stayed away from Mikey because the buzzing is back in his brain and he’s thinking about that one conversation he had with Patrick, where he said that from now on he was only sleeping with sane people. Mikey is sane. Beautifully so. And Pete is just as crazy as he was before and he’s going to ruin him. They’re watching Jurassic Park, and it kicks in around the time Ellie and Alan see the herbivores for the first time, and maybe Mikey thinks the small, stifled noise he makes is just a reaction to the theme music moment, but Pete can feel the attack build and squeeze in around his chest, he’s fidgeting, and he just has the presence of mind to grab his phone and go

“DudeI’msorryIjustrememberedIgottotakethis!” and dashes for the bathroom.

‘Slow clap’, says his brain sarcastically. His slides down against the closed door and focuses on breathing. Mikey doesn’t follow him, for which he is infinitely grateful, but by the time he’s gotten himself back under control Mikey is sitting on the couch with his arms folded, expression serious.

“Hey,” Pete says, fake smile stretched taut across his face.

“What was that about?” Mikey asks.

“I just had to take that call real quick,” Pete says, and Mikey says,

“Okay,” and stands up and gets his jacket like he’s going to go.

“Wait!” Pete exclaims. “What are you doing?”

“Pete, I like you a lot, but I really don’t like games. Call me when you figure out what you want.”

“I want you!” What the hell is this?

“Really. Because you act like it when we’re together, then you blank me for days at a time without telling me what I’ve done, then you get some call that clearly freaks you the hell out while we’re watching a movie...”

“It wasn’t-!” the world is shifting. “I’m not cheating on you!” He blurts. He wants to say, ‘how can you think that?’ but then, fireworks or not, they’ve really only known each other a couple of months. Do they know each other?

“Okay. Good,” Mikey sits down again, but his posture is still closed, defensive. “So what are you doing?”

Hahaha. What is he doing? Dealing with the fallout of his spectuarly fucked up brain?

“Well I –“ Pete looks at his hands. “Sometimes I have…things. I get – anxious.”

“Okay…”

“Not like normal anxious, more like – attacks. Like panic attacks. And – and other stuff.”

Mikey blinks. “Well – why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well because like you know about – how I had – those problems, back in February, and you knew about that and you were cool with it and that was great, but I just wanted you to think I was fixed and all. But I’m not fixed. I don’t think I ever can be.”

“You weren’t sick that time,” Mikey says slowly. “I mean, you were sick, but-”

“Yeah. Panic attack.” Well, it’s out now. “Also sometimes I get the depressive shit. I have awful thoughts. I think about doing stuff to myself and to other people. So I just – you know. I couldn’t let you find about that stuff.”

Oh. Wrong move. The hurt, guarded look is back on Mikey’s face:

“You didn’t trust me.”

“I didn’t trust me!” Pete tries to make him understand.

“No…you didn’t trust me to deal with it. You thought I’d what – run away?”

“Well you will, right! Anyone would! Look at you, you’re all freaked out and you fucking should be!”

“I’m not freaked out because you have issues! I’m pissed because you lied and upset that you didn’t trust me!”

“You didn’t trust me either! You assumed I was cheating!”

“Well what the fuck was I supposed to think?”

Once, during one of their real fights, Patrick had told Pete that he never tried to see anything from other peoples’ perspectives. “It’s just always about YOU isn’t it Pete? How YOU feel and what YOU need. Maybe you’d find things easier if you weren’t so god damn self-absorbed all the time”. In this case, he’s apparently right. Pete can try now to see the past weeks from Mikey’s perspective, analyse his behaviour from the outside, but it’s too late. It’s all too late. They’re fighting now and Pete does what he always does when he’s scared and hurt and lashes out:

“Well I guess I was right. You can’t handle it. Why don’t you go cry to your brother, I’m sure he’ll remind how you’re way too good for a fuck-up like me.”  
Mikey goes pink, bites his lip, and for an awful second Pete thinks he might actually cry, but instead he says

“Go to hell, Pete,”

And leaves. Pete grabs the nearest breakable object, which happens to be a mug, and smashes it. He’s half-tempted to go for the TV, but that’s cliché even for him, so he heads for the little bathroom instead and smashes the mirror with the palm of one hand, not feeling pain, and cheerful-red blood splatters the sink. He considers the miscellaneous pill bottles – everything he takes, plus generic Tylenol, vitamins, a handful of antibiotics left from something, cough syrup and a few unidentified objects. Pete’s not sure who he’s trying to punish but it isn’t his bandmates, so he leaves it, grabs his sunglasses walks off the bus instead, finds the nearest shitty bar. He doesn’t even like most alcohol, but that what vodka’s for, gets you past the tasting phase and tides you over till you don’t care what you’re drinking. It’s all poison. Just like Pete.

Gerard fucking Way is going to kill him.

*

Warped ends with a bang. Several of them. It’s September now, not traditionally a firework month, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s going to let that get in the way of a good survivor’s party.

  
“We don’t have to go,” Patrick says. It’s been four days since the break up. Pete has written over sixty pages of retrospective poetic vitriol, and received eighteen texts from the members of MCR which amount to variations on the theme of ‘ _Fuck you Pete Wentz’_. ' _u just threw away the best person who’ll ever look twice at u',_ Frank Iero texts him. That guy really has away with the lacerations. Joe confiscates Pete’s Sidekick to stop him replying. FOB are all avoiding MCR out of solidarity, or they had been until tonight, but Pete was fucked if he was going to ruin everyone’s well deserved celebrations.

“You guys go,” he says from his bunk. He has no idea what he’s feeling anymore.

“We’re not gonna leave you here by yourself,” says Andy.

“Ok then, I’ll come, Pete shrugs and sits up. Fuck it. He took a couple of Ativan a few hours ago, and the drug is still disconnecting him enough that he can deal with this. It’s a warm night. There are bonfires in trashcans, beer in kegs, music pulsating from a stereo and underage crew members off their collective faces. Pete glimpses Mikey across the parking lot, laughing and talking with Ray Toro and someone from their crew. ‘He’s fine’, Pete thinks with a start. ‘He’s fine. Fuck him. I meant nothing to him’. That might be his destructive brain again, or it might be a rational conclusion. There’s a burst of laughter and confusion from the middle of the lot. Some of the guys from Underoath are messing with a trash can.

“Dude, get back!” someone yells, “Here it goes!” and they all fall back. With a fizz and a burst of extatic sparks, a red rocket goes searing into the night. In that precise instant, Mikey turns and regards Pete, and the angular lines of his face and his hazel eyes are all lit up in its path. His expression is passive.

Unreadable.

That’s alright.

Pete will write a story all over this. Soon enough.


End file.
